Much of what most Americans know about Native Americans comes from the films they’ve seen, which often depicted us as either violent savages or the dignified bearers of a bygone age. So when the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, an homage to Hollywood’s finest work, organized a series of weekly drop-in tours this November dedicated to “Indigenous Voices,” there was reason for concern.
Those taking the time to visit one of these sessions might expect to learn about Native Americans who influenced cinema. So why did the Academy Museum choose to “celebrate” Native Americans by featuring two people—Sacheen Littlefeather and Buffy Sainte-Marie—who misled the public about their heritage?
Sacheen Littlefeather was an activist who identified herself as Yaqui and White Mountain Apache. Her claim to fame was a protest speech at the 1973 Academy Awards to decline an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando. Littlefeather, dressed in a buckskin dress and beadwork, spoke out against poor Native representation in cinema. She would later say that John Wayne threatened to attack her as she spoke, and that her speech cost her a career in Hollywood as she was blacklisted for speaking out. The Academy formally apologized for Hollywood’s treatment of Littlefeather with an evening event honoring her last October.
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Weeks later, Littlefeather died and her sisters revealed that they were not Native American at all. They said Littlefeather’s claims were all made up. Nonetheless, the Academy stood by Littlefeather, telling the Washington Post that they “recognize self-identification.” In short, if someone says they’re Native, the Academy considers them Native.
To their credit, the Academy Museum recently removed one exhibit’s references to Littlefeather’s professed Native American heritage because of “pushback” from activists. But the museum’s website still states that as part of the listening tours, “Conversations with educators may also highlight… Buffy St. Marie and Sacheen Littlefeather in the Academy Awards History gallery.” The Academy Museum did not reply to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Sainte-Marie built a career as a singer and activist adopted by a white family from the Piapot First Nation (Cree) in Saskatchewan, Canada. She told fans that she was taken from her tribal family in the “Sixties Scoop,” which saw many babies adopted into non-Native families as part of an attempted cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Sainte-Marie appeared in 1975 as the first Indigenous person on Sesame Street, introducing children and adults to Indigenous cultures. In that episode, she asks a boy whether a story he heard was about real Indians or a fairy tale. “Some are just pretend and some are real,” she says. “I’m real.” Sainte-Marie won numerous Canadian and international awards for her songs, including “Up Where We Belong” from An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), for which she shared an Academy Award.
However, a detailed investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Fifth Estate published last month found no evidence to support Sainte-Marie’s family stories. Moreover, her birth certificate and interviews with family members showed that she was born in Massachusetts, and her “adoptive” parents were in fact her biological parents. These revelations have shaken popular culture in Canada and beyond, though questions about her identity lingered long before. The Piapot First Nation adopted Sainte-Marie as one of their own in 1964, but questions remain on whether they would have made this choice without her adoption story and the career she built upon it.
The organization’s decision to honor Littlefeather and Sainte-Marie overlooks the contributions of Native peoples in Hollywood, both past and present. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know, or couldn’t find this information. Angela Aleiss, PhD, an author and historian, researches the contributions of Native Americans in Hollywood. Her 2022 book Hollywood’s Native Americans identifies several who the Academy Museum could have featured instead.
For example, there’s Chickasaw citizen Edwin Carewe (1883-1940), who was a leading light of the silent era. Carewe was born as Jay Fox and known as “Chula the Fox” because of his Chickasaw roots. Carewe acted in, directed, or produced 101 films between 1907 and 1934. Carewe’s film Ramona (1928) touches on surprisingly modern themes of race and class: The adopted daughter of a wealthy Spanish family in California falls in love with a Native American and is forced to choose between her family and her heart. Carewe also discovered actor Delores Del Rio, who starred in Ramona and became famous in her own right.
There’s also Will Sampson (1933-1987), a citizen of the Mvskoke (Creek) Nation, who acted in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), among other films. Sampson battled prejudice from an early age–he left school in the third grade after a classroom fight blamed on him–but was known for his compassion and regard for civility. Many of the characters he played overcame personal demons, like his character Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest which won five Academy Awards in 1976. Sampson also spoke out against Hollywood’s misrepresentation of Native Americans. He co-founded the American Indian Registry for the Performing Arts, which advocated for Native Americans and created its own directory of Native American performers and technicians. He wanted to discourage Hollywood from using non-Natives in roles meant for Native peoples, a struggle that continues to this day.
Or there’s Wes Studi, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma who broke new ground in the modern era of cinema—and appeared most recently on the FX series Reservation Dogs. Studi appeared in several Oscar-nominated films such as Dances with Wolves (1990), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), The New World (2005), and Avatar (2009). Aleiss notes that Studi brought a rage with him to the screen, shaped by his life experiences that included fighting in the Vietnam War and joining the American Indian Movement’s occupation of Wounded Knee. In The Last of the Mohicans, Studi’s character, the Huron warrior Magua, rips the heart out of a British colonel, lifting it for all to see. As actor and activist Russell Means pointed out, “the story’s bad Indian has a good reason for being bad.” The violence wasn’t senseless, but a moment of retribution. The Academy’s board of governors presented Studi with an Honorary Academy Award in 2019 for his lifetime of work. Excluding Sainte-Marie’s win in 1983, Studi became the first Native person to receive an Oscar in the then-90-year history of these awards.
Finally, there is Tantoo Cardinal, a member of McMurray Métis in Canada. She appeared in over 125 films and TV series including Dances with Wolves (1990), Legends of the Fall (1994) and Falls Around Her (2018). Aleiss notes that her characters challenged the stereotypically meek and sexualized images of Native women through raw and outspoken characters. Cardinal had a challenging childhood filled with loss, including a sister who was removed during the Sixties Scoop. She encountered racist taunts and rejection when she left her rural community to attend high school in Edmonton. This sparked Cardinal’s dedication to acting, as a way to challenge the injustice she and other Native peoples endured.
These are but a few examples of the Native Americans who influenced Hollywood and how the world saw people like them. The Academy Museum missed an opportunity to inform the public about their contributions both on screen and off. Native Americans—and other racial and ethnic minorities—deserve better.
Nonetheless, the future is growing brighter for Native American actors. Lily Gladstone (Blackfeet and Nez Perce descent) delivered a powerful performance as Mollie Burkhart in Killers of the Flower Moon, along with Cara Jade Myers (Wichita) who plays Mollie’s sister Anna Kyole Brown, and many other Native American actors. Though imperfect, the film is giving Native Americans a chance to see strong people like them on the big screen in cinemas around the world.
It also provides the non-Native world with a horrific example of the genocidal traumas their ancestors endured in a way that they might just understand. The success of Killers of the Flower Moon shows that there is public interest in hearing Native stories, along with stories of other historically marginalized peoples. Hopefully the Academy will consider this interest, along with the public good, and genuinely improve the diversity and representation of cinema. It has much more work to do.
